Show HN: Famous Outfits - <AUTHOR> http://famousoutfits.com/ <comment><USER2> Very nicely done. If you did this for Indian celebrities, VCs in India would throw eight figure sums to buy you out. As an immigrant, I'd say Americans are relatively more rational ie. not so celeb-crazy as to completely remodel themselves after a celebrity, though teens, especially teen girls tend to be an the outlier in this aspect. But if you look at celeb-crazy countries like India, you have grown men & women in their 20s,30s,40s...who will ape celeb dresses, celeb haircuts, celeb behavior even. I have had the unfortunate experience of sitting through entire 3-hour Bollywood films where all the audience did was take notes on what the lead heroine was wearing so they could go home & purchase those exact outfits.

<comment><USER3> Also South Korea and Japan are also more openly interested in fashion.

<comment><USER4> South Korea and Japan and completely different in term of fashion, it doesn't make much sense to mix them.

South Korea is much more flashy, celebrity-looking like fashion with huge sunglasses.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but are they similarly _interested_?

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be another untapped market for us. Good suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You need to sign up for Viglink or Skimlinks ASAP - the fact that you aren't using affiliate links is literally costing you.

Those services are a single line of javascript which automatically affiliates any outgoing link, and they are perfect for sites like this where you can't waste time trying to maintain affiliate accounts with hundreds of advertisers.

No offense to you, of course, but the fact that sites pop up on HN regularly of this type without affiliate links amazes me.

<comment><USER7> Don't sign up to either Viglink or Skimlinks.

If you're curating the products and links manually (as this site appears to be doing), then sign up to the 4 or 5 affiliate programs directly.

It's insane that anyone would give away 25%+ of their current revenue and future revenue to save a few minutes work.

Even if you are not curating links and are using user generated content... only use Viglink and Skimlinks as a stop-gap for you identifying your key revenue sources and going direct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the concept - most of these kinds of posts are done completely ad hoc and are distributed across all of the various men's fashion forums - but the URL made me think this was going to be a breakdown of famous outfits worn by characters in TV and movies (e.g. The Driver's outfit from Drive).

Also, most of the outfits you picked are pretty stale. Go for one that are more exciting or with pieces that would be more difficult to figure out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I definitely appreciate it. The reason for these outfits being more "normal" is because our goal is for most people to actually be able to wear these outfits.

But we do plan on doing some crazy outfits in the future. Thanks again!

<comment><USER9> I feel the same way. I think that "CelebrityOutfits" as a domain would suit the content of your site a bit better. Because when you say "FamousOutfits" It makes it sound like the outfit is famous not the person wearing it. "Oufits Of the Famous" would work too I suppose but it's not as catchy. "FamousX" will probably remind a lot of people of "Famous Footwear" which you may or may not want to be associated with.

I was expecting memorable/recognizable outfits instead of "clothes that famous people wear".

For example:

Pinstripe Suit with hat = Mobster

Red plaid shirt suspenders Jeans and boots = lumberjack

Khaki shirt and shorts = Crocodile hunter

studded leather jacket + jeans/camo fatigues = Punk rocker

matching tracksuit shoes and hat = Slavic youth

Good news is the domain is probably the easiest part to change!

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, that's a whole lot of extrapolation from the domain that could be cleared up simply by visiting the website. There was a discussion here recently about not spending too much time thinking about your product's name. I don't think it's worth setting up a new domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for chiming in. We think the name is simple and memorable. We were shocked the domain name was available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very nice! I just placed an order on the watch that Daniel Craig wears [1] (not because he wears them, just because I like them) and noticed that there is no affiliate code in your links to amazon!?

1\. [http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-daniel- craig/](http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-daniel-craig/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for visiting the site and clicking through the links. We are currently adding affiliate links. We focused all our energy on creating a great experience first. Thanks for your support!

<comment><USER12> Affiliate links do not affect my experience. You should add them.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are in the process. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You know what would make this a lot better? Packaging it up so that one wouldn't have to go to 10 different stores to pick the items up.

I'd order straight away and pay a premium to save the hazzle. A logistics challenge for sure, but you'd have at least one customer right here.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, you can use plugins like [http://varinode.com/](http://varinode.com/) that allows customers to make purchase on the site itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pretty similar to what you see in lots of magazines: [http://www.instyle.co.uk/fashion/get-the- look](http://www.instyle.co.uk/fashion/get-the-look)

And the celeb style guide: [http://www.celebritystyleguide.com/](http://www.celebritystyleguide.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We've found most sites like this are focused on women only. It was our goal to create a great resource for men too.

<comment><USER16> Hey jadlimcaco, one quick feedback: it would be nice if one could filter celebs by height. Looks that work on big tall guys (large hats, long hairs etc) often look really stupid on smaller people like me.

There are a bunch of resources you can quickly scrape to get that sort of data (I know because I've just done it and I got more than 6000 celebs in literally minutes), so if you can find a good way to integrate it on the website, it would be fab.

Another suggestion is, if you go for affiliate links (which you should), it would be nice to have a way to switch geographical zones so that us Europeans can also benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The main scalability issue with this is that the products you've found will quickly go out of stock, so as you build up a collection of outfits you'll face an increasing burden going back and checking all of the products to see if they're in stock (or risk damaging your brand).

I worked on something similar back in 2008. We were looking at ways of monetising our visual similarity engine. We could mark a set of query products for each outfit and return a selection of products that were both similar and in-stock and give the customer the option of filtering by price range or whatever.

There were some nice challenges in there, like processing gigabytes of retailer feeds as rapidly as possible looking for new items, standardising various huge feeds without using up developer time, product deduplication, image feature extraction, designing the indexing method (we ended up using the Visual Words technique with a custom distributed Lucene inverted index as Solr didn't support partitions at the time). It was a really fun project... and I've drifted far enough off topic that I'm going to finish up.

The tech was pretty solid (and replicable if you can get someone decent to do the CBIR piece) but we ran out of runway.

<comment><USER18> Isn't that problem self-solving? Who wants to dress like a celebrity dressed last season- you want what they're wearing this season. Keep it up to date, with what's "in" now.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about fashion.

<comment><USER19> I think the stock would run out much faster than fashion would change. Also, there are probably 4 or 5 retailers selling similar items; you want your affiliate links to spread the load over those sites so as not to kill any of them quickly.

Of course, all this assumes your site explodes and you help sell thousands of outfits per day; which sounds unlikely to programmers, but maybe not for the people who buy all those awful magazines that are more popular than Linux Voice.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, stock turnover is much higher than trend duration. Any retailer that knowingly let stock last longer than trends would be burning their margin.

Stock is measured in weeks or months but trends can last for years, and recur, and recur, and there's no value in an affiliate link to an out of stock product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Like a contemporary version of: [http://nerdboyfriend.tumblr.com/](http://nerdboyfriend.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, looking for feedback on design, content, functionality, and overall idea. Feel free to ask me any questions. Thanks!

<comment><USER21> Since you asked, something wonky is going on in Chrome on Nexus 7. Your site seems to fall back to almost no CSS, with plain links where a menu should presumably be. No tooltip functionality. It also disables any zoom and defaults to a really awkward level where I can see one side of the clothes images and about half the main picture at a time.

I took a couple of screenshots: [http://imgur.com/LFulxvD](http://imgur.com/LFulxvD) [http://imgur.com/eTgyjwV](http://imgur.com/eTgyjwV)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it was an issue with my CDN. Mind clearing your cache and trying again?

<comment><USER21> Fixed! That's really really nice, awesome layout - great job :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This looks pretty neat and you did a great job with your Pin It buttons. You may wish to consider adding this META:

<meta name="pinterest" content="nohover"></meta>

... to the HEAD of any page that already has a Pin It button aboard. This will tell the Pinterest browser extension not to bother showing hoverbuttons on this page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words. I'll take a look at this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great looking site.

Funnily enough, asos.com, which is something like the third biggest UK Internet company now (according to some slightly dubious stats that were posted here a month or two ago), actually started out with a similar premise: they don't mention it much these days (a tiny link in the footer which leads to a page looking like it needs a bit of love [0]), but the acronym originally stood for "As Seen On Screen", and you could buy near-replicas of clothing worn by stars both on and off the screen. Back when I was young and impressionable, I bought a leather jacket much like one of the ones Brad Pitt wore in "Fight Club".

[0]: [http://www.asos.com/asos-as-seen-on- screen/cat/pgehtml.aspx?...](http://www.asos.com/asos-as-seen-on- screen/cat/pgehtml.aspx?cid=18967)

<comment><USER24> > Back when I was young and impressionable, I bought a leather jacket much > like one of the ones Brad Pitt wore in "Fight Club".

That's extra funny because his character in that movie more or less directly argues against such behaviour!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how they know what socks the celebrities were wearing? They are nice socks, I just can't see them in the actual photos.

<comment><AUTHOR> We call them before we post :) Just kidding, we just match up a pair of socks based on the look of the outfit. Thanks for taking a look at the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Suggestions from Mrs Browl - great, but do the same for celebrities of different ethnicities and sizes. There are plenty of guys who are shaped like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, John Goodman - all of whom are well dressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely and great suggestion. We 100% agree with you and that is our plan moving forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nice execution. We had a similar idea called [http://www.pinchthelook.com](http://www.pinchthelook.com) but for women. The feedback was great and people 'loved' the site but ultimately we couldn't get to a scale where there was enough traffic and clicks to make it worthwhile. Engagement isn't fantastic since it's more of a quick browse and if I like something click away from site.

Perhaps this idea will work better for Men as they probably need a bit more help in piecing together a look (more often than not) ;)

<comment><USER28> Nice looking site!

<comment><USER27> Thanks! As a backend dev who did the UI I appreciate that very much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love this idea!

I don't think you need to use celebrities at all. If you had well dressed men with different styles with links to the stores where one can purchase the items, I think men will like it more. I don't think a lot of men feel comfortable with "dressing like a celebrity" but most don't mind getting ideas for a wardrobe. It will also solve the issue of rights infringements.

The only thing I didn't like is the links to the socks that are not visible in the picture.

<comment><USER24> You see carbon copies of celebrities running around all the time, in fact that is one of the main drivers behind the fashion industry. Both men and women do this and even though it totally weirds me out (I'm a jeans-and-t-shirt guy on private time and I'll add a simple shirt on professional days) I do think there is a business case by tying into celebrities. It immediately creates a rights issue though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking a look at the site. You're right. Celebrities often drive fashion trends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is a great idea. I would be careful going _too_ cheap on the recommended pieces. For example, on the Theo James, there is no way I would buy a Haynes T-shirt. If super-cheap is your target market, then great. But, you could also go thewirecutter style and have "Get this look for under $100" and "A more expensive version". Good luck on the execution!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Our aim is "affordable." Unfortunately, that's pretty subjective. So, we try to appeal to a broad audience under that umbrella. We could link to a GAP shirt one day and a Hanes the next. With that said, we are definitely going to feature "Get this look for $_____" like you suggested. Great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you made this as a commercial venture you are probably infringing on these celebrities personality rights.

<comment><USER32> He/she is also infringing on IP rights. For example they are photoshopping out the model from Amazon and Lord and Taylor product pages and reusing those images without permission. Even though it's not for profit as soon as it gets large enough for those companies to notice the creator can expect a cease and desist letter.

<comment><USER33> He's linking to the products... why would they send a cease and desist to a website sending them targeted leads?

<comment><USER32> Because companies are pretty defensive their brand and also in some cases the contracts with modeling agencies may be a factor.

Source: I work at Amazon and am working closely with product imaging at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your insight. We're doing our best to represent the brands we link to positively. In fact, we've already had two of the brands we link to reach out to us and ask if they could be of help in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Reminds me of [http://www.polyvore.com/](http://www.polyvore.com/)

</comment><comment><USER35> It would be a much better customer experience if you could buy the entire outfit in one action -- add outfit to cart, checkout, done -- instead of going to each product's ecommerce site individually, which would take quite a long time. I realize these are all different stores operating on disparate platforms -- Hybris, Magento, Oracle ATG, Elastic Path, etc. -- but aggregating it somehow via a middle platform would be much more seamless to the end user. And the site operators could take a small cut.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea. We're trying to think of ways we can do this. Thanks for taking a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I like the simplicity of it. I could see myself actually using this to buy a new outfit, whereas for most fashion sites I feel hopelessly lost because, truthfully, I just need someone to tell me what to get. I have a vague desire to dress well, but I find I just can't be bothered to keep up on trends to research how different pieces go together myself.

Presenting a clean list of outfits from which I can choose, with each outfit having every individual component already mapped out, represents an easy compromise.

</comment><comment><USER37> See also: [http://www.thread.com](http://www.thread.com) Stylists recommend outfits for you based on criteria you specify & photos you upload.

</comment><comment><USER38> Great-looking site, but did you license the images used? Celebrity photogs won't take kindly to usage without permission. I've even heard of blogs being sued for similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a valid point, and it was already something that we have been looking into, and possibly even doing the Getty editorial images.

<comment><USER38> You'll want to take care of it quickly. Google turns up numerous cases where sites used images without permission, received a cease-and-desist, took the images down immediately and then still got sued. It's the photographer's livelihood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> great idea. not all sunglasses are wayfarers though...

would be cool if you had mechanisms for swapping out similar items. so you could "fork" a look, if you will.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol, gonna have to mix it up then. That's what those products are :)

Hmmm... Great thoughts. Thanks. Will definitely keep that in mind as we scale.

<comment><USER39> [http://famousoutfits.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/zac- efro...](http://famousoutfits.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/zac-efron-casual- look.jpg)

come on, these look nothing like wayfarers. you're pushing it with that jacket, too. i realize you have to match on a budget, but details matter here. that will help build credibility and authority in fashion.

i didn't mean to nitpick or sound too cynical, i think it's a great idea. good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. AS you notice, we want to keep it afforable. Same overall look, but different because of price. Will work on being more accurate though. Thanks!

<comment><USER40> That's definitely not the Levi's trucker jacket that Efron is wearing, either. (His jacket has buttons on both sides, and what looks to be a sheepskin or fleece collar, and the breast pockets have hidden buttons. And so on — it's completely different.) People who care about fashion care about details like these.

Personally, I find it disingenuous. I like the idea, but associating these outfits with glamorous celebrities doesn't make the products automatically better. At the very least you should offer a choice between the real item and, if it's expensive, offer a cheaper item as an alternative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for chiming in. In our footer you'll find this "Famous Outfits is not just another site that finds the latest in celebrity men's fashion. We take it a step further by showing you how to achieve the same look affordably." They key here is the "look." We don't say that we're going to exactly identify every piece of clothing the celebrity is wearing. If you look at Robert Pattinson's outfit on the site, he's actually wearing a $3000 Gucci jacket. We link to a jacket that has a very similar look for $30. The audience and niche we're aiming toward is more in line with the $30 price range.

<comment><USER39> I leave you with this: "very similar" is subjective. most people who actually care about fashion would not find these items "very similar".

I definitely see the use case for "so cheap it's nothing like the original", but you need to provide a service for people who actually care about fashion. because if you don't care about fashion you wouldn't be on this site in the first place.

this is why i recommend "forking". show me 10 jackets that are "very similar" of varying prices. so I can match on budget but also on how particular I am.

even if I were not privy to fashion- my first reaction would be "these are not the same sunglasses."

I could find sunglasses at my local grocery store that are cheaper and look more similar to zac's than the pair you recommended. what do I need your site for? rebuilding a look for cheap is not the problem. rebuilding an _authentic_ look for cheap if the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is amazing and I've wanted this for awhile but didn't know where to find it. Great execution, keep on trucking and it'll do very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nice. Of course the obvious criticism (to me at least) is that the exacts products are not the same even, though the overall look is, eg David Beckham's shirt or JT's cardigan.

[http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-david- beckham/](http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-david-beckham/)

[http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-justin- timberlake/](http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-justin-timberlake/)

Comments are a good idea, but I wonder if eventually you could crowdsource finding the exact product, perhaps giving a reward to whoever guessed it right from some bounty pool.

You might even get celebs themselves cooperating - perhaps you could notify them by twitter, and post their replies to the page, or offer some unique hashtag if they want to declare what they were wearing.

Or, more realistically, have fans send tweets out on your behalf to elicit a response from a celeb that you could then record: that can be done automatically. Eventually you could have a celeb claim their page for customization.

It'd be also interesting to allow users to post pictures of themselves trying to look-alike. They could mention if they found the exact brand-copy in their subsequent shopping. Then the underlying celeb (or rather brand) might become interested in working with you.

<comment><USER43> _> Of course the obvious criticism (to me at least) is that the exacts products are not the same even, though the overall look is_

This is actually the strength. If they served customers the exact clothing celebrities are wearing it wouldn't be terribly actionable...the cost would be prohibitive.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, but many people won't want to look like a celeb.. they may just like a shirt (rather than purchase an entire outfit.) Then I'd have cheaper alternatives listed. In fact, there would be many alternatives to many of those products, but let's start with the real one (ideally). There could even be a cost-calculator to work out some combination of items for some overall price-range.. some legitimate, some alternative. Users could post alternatives and they could be ranked - the highest ranked one is listed on the page with the image (ideally it'd be the legitimate brand.)

<comment><USER43> Every bit of that complexity comes with an increasingly high cost though. You start adding more messaging, cost calculators, starting points that aren't actionable by most of your customers, forums etc., and you can quickly damage your value prop.

I think "Show me a celeb I want to look like and let me do it" has the best chance of working for many reasons. The message is clear, and the goal is easy to understand and attainable given the customer's resources (both attention and monetary).

I'd guess that it's better to start simple and slowly add these complex features carefully as the audience grows.

<comment><USER42> ok, well to me that doesn't work for me, I'd prefer:

"show me a great piece of clothing as exactly worn by a celeb, then let me buy it"

<comment><USER43> Of course, but you aren't the customer or part of the business model:

 _> Our aim is "affordable." Unfortunately, that's pretty subjective. So, we try to appeal to a broad audience under that umbrella._

The features of the site have to be tailored to the business objectives. Mass market aspirational as opposed to high-end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Awesome idea! Adding a forum or some type of community/social aspect might be even more fun for visitors. I noticed the comments at the bottom of the pages and it looks like some visitors are already posting some things and that's great. Maybe with some more social features you can build a community and bring in more traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We have a major community piece we are currently working on. We're aiming to have it completed this weekend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The mailing list was nice while it lasted. After a day or two, I started receiving "CLICK TO VIEW TODAY'S STYLE" e-mail links to force me to visit the site to see the style. E-mailing me links to your site everyday is basically spam. With no content coming from the mailing list, I promptly unsubscribed.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is really good...I like the concept. I hate shopping online for single items online and i do find myself 'borrowing' from the style of others.

Packaging up all items for delivery is great. Having people upload their own style and having your site do the same with their picture would be pretty awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it. We're working on user submissions right now. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> great site. neat concept.

i'm so out of style, but I can take away one thing from that first page : crotch depth in men's pants is too low now. I know fashion is cyclical, but it feels like we're about to witness the re-emergence of 80's style high-waist jeans.

god those were uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER48> James Bond does not wear those socks.

</comment><comment><USER49> I also had worked on something similar

[http://getsnapcode.com/](http://getsnapcode.com/)

Example of wardrobes : [http://getsnapcode.com/wardrobes/18](http://getsnapcode.com/wardrobes/18)

</comment><comment><USER50> I found some shoes to buy from your site, great job! This also works for interior design, most people just want to find out where to buy the items they are looking at. Houzz is starting to do this, but on a limited basis.

<comment><USER51> I don't mean to derail these comments further from the OP, but I'm glad you brought this up. I really wish Houzz would find a way to make money off product placements and start pumping it. 99% of the time when I see a room of interest the first question I have is "what is that?" (material/colour/brand) and "where can I find it?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Isn't this how ASOS [1] started? It used to be called "As Seen on Screen" and you used to be able to buy, say, the same baseball cap as David Beckham or the leather jacket that Tom Hanks wore in Movie X etc.

[1] www.asos.com

<comment><USER53> Ha I never knew that. Here's where they say it now [http://www.asos.com/asos- as-seen-on-screen/cat/pgehtml.aspx?...](http://www.asos.com/asos-as-seen-on- screen/cat/pgehtml.aspx?cid=18967&full_site=yes&r=2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I made something similar to this but more DIY -- not curated outfits worn by celebs, but outfits designed and shared by you.

[http://www.assembl.co](http://www.assembl.co)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! Just curious what you built this in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Looks awesome. You could use the ShopStyle API to monetize product links. [http://shopsense.shopstyle.com](http://shopsense.shopstyle.com)

</comment><comment><USER56> Now I just need one of these that sources from stores that actually carry my size. Pretty sure my fat butt would be turned away at the doors of Uniqlo or H&M.

</comment><comment><USER57> Looks like a cool idea, I'm not sure how accurate the products you link to are to whats pictured though. I would work on making that more accurate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Our goal is to achieve the same look affordably. We do the best we can, but we also encourage our community to engage and suggest an alternative if there is a better option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I subscribed. The RSS feed is here [http://famousoutfits.com/feed/](http://famousoutfits.com/feed/) BTW.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great! Thank you.

<comment><USER59> And here's an IFTTT recipe to go with it: [https://ifttt.com/recipes/201372-email-subscription-to- famou...](https://ifttt.com/recipes/201372-email-subscription-to- famousoutfits-com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Thanks for doing that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Who wants to copy what some celeb has on??? I can't believe there's a market for this. Then again, I thought Twitter was a stupid idea...

<comment><USER24> At a guess, people that think that if they dress like celebrities they'll be more attractive somehow.

I couldn't care less what a celebrity wears but enough people do that I think it might work, judging by the reactions here he's found a bunch of takers already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I've wanted this for years... I even own the website [http://www.styleaday.com](http://www.styleaday.com)

</comment><comment><USER62> These guys are wearing regular department-store looks.

</comment><comment><USER63> Sorry to interrupt the party, but LookBook was already doing it at least 3 years ago - that I remember: [http://lookbook.nu/look/6605676-Sheinside-Bet- Printed-Choies...](http://lookbook.nu/look/6605676-Sheinside-Bet-Printed- Choies-Daniel-Wellington)

Also, if you liked that site + you would like to do money with it, check out [http://www.seedtag.com/](http://www.seedtag.com/) it's like the big brother idea of that site. I see an incredible potential on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for commenting! We think what we're offering is unique to lookbook. Lookbook is almost all women (and almost everything similar to this concept is too) and a small percentage of their photos are breakdowns of where to purchase. We also have a few ideas that we are woking on that involve community engagement that lookbook is not offering either. However, seedtag looks promising. Is it in Spanish only?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> How are you handling photo rights/licensing?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something that we have been looking into, and possibly even doing the Getty editorial images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> My roommate works at RewardStyle, you should look into their platform for monetization. It's pretty awesome.

<comment><USER66> RS is great. My wife runs a fashion blog and it's the best affiliate platform out there right now. It makes monetizing your links a cinch.

However, I have had problems with performance. I think they are just struggling to keep up with the growing scale. Resolving redirects through bit.ly to rstyle to finally the product can be very slow at times. And their image widgets are also pretty slow. I think they need to improve their CDNs. And iOS app is pretty buggy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> You should monetize this with affiliate links at the very least. Looks like a promising project, good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's on the way. We have applied to a few different places and just got approved. Definitely don't wanna clutter the pages with ads. Thanks for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> very nice. bookmark'd and hopefully I'll remember it in a few days when I go fall shopping.

Edit: I should just say that other than the landing page, the page css doesn't seem to be loading properly. You should probably fix that. Sites other than HN benefit from nice graphics.

</comment><comment><USER69> Why don't you use referrals where possible (i.e. Amazon)? I think it will convert a lot!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestion. We are in the process of integrating affiliate links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> This is awesome. I have a feeling Instagram is going to be your biggest growth lever.

No affiliate links?

<comment><AUTHOR> Instagram and Pinterest seem to be the most popular so far. Affiliate links are coming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> You need to add more famous programmers to your list for variety's sake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting. Keep an eye out on September 9th. We're planning to do something special for the Apple Announcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Do post on /r/frugalmalefashion and /r/malefashionadvice

</comment><comment><USER73> The jacket Ryan Gosling is wearing has a front pocket. I don't think it's the Perry Ellis Bomber Jacket.

His boots also don't look like Steve Madden boots.

This is a great concept, but it would be a lot more meaningful to me if I knew I could trust the product listings.

<comment><USER74> I am fairly certain the idea of this website isn't "wear exactly what celebs are wearing".

Rather, the idea is "you can look like a celeb without buying designer clothing!"

Indeed, the former can be found in a plethora of style magazines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Why put David Beckham's socks on here when you can clearly not see them in the picture?

[http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-david- beckham/](http://famousoutfits.com/dress-like-david-beckham/)

</comment><comment><USER76> Coolspotters, the site I run, does the exact same thing! We have a big library of celebrities and the clothing they're wearing. [http://coolspotters.com](http://coolspotters.com)

</comment><comment><USER77> very cool, love the idea. I spoke about this idea in the past and if someone could execute it properly it could go somewhere. Any plans to monetize?

</comment><comment><USER25> How do you know what socks they were/are wearing?

</comment><comment><USER78> Monetize this by using [http://www.viglink.com/](http://www.viglink.com/) and watch the dollars pour in!

</comment><comment><USER79> Great, now ship it to me.

</comment><comment><USER80> The CDN is down :/

</comment><comment><USER81> Get on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER82> Hmm... love the idea, and it'll probably make money, but the problem with anything like this (even magazine ads) is that cut is paramount and people come in different shapes and sizes. Clothes fitting properly matters much more than what they look like on the rack, and more often than not, cuts at discount stores are either atrocious, or they are designed for fit models (those lucky jerks).

I can go to uniqlo, i can buy a shirt that fits my sholders great, at target? Forget it. Back at the uniqlo, i may try going to their jeans section, but nothing fits me, nothing. I have to get levi's because i have odd hip/leg ratio and they are the only firm that can sell me that cut for under $100. I am limited excessively by this... and we are only talking about basic blue jeans.

The celebs look good because they have the time and money to buy stuff that fits, and looks great together. Imitation may be a great way to same the time, discounted imitation may be a way to save the time and money, but i think that in neither case you'll look good.

The best thing to do is to get into looks as a whole, and once you have decent taste, buy thing that work for your body. It's not easy, and it may not be as cheap as these places try and get you to believe you can do it for, but at the end of the day, you'll look good, instead of a crappy version of Zac Efron.

<comment><USER83> If Uniqlo fits you well, try any of the Mossimo shirts at Target, v-necks or crew necks. Cheap and good enough quality. (Gleaned that from /r/malefashionadvice.)

Otherwise, for the shirts and pants that almost fit, find yourself a good tailor and have them adjusted to your body. It's not expensive at all for basic adjustments.

<comment><USER84> [http://everlane.com](http://everlane.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Well done and congrats on launching. But I hate that it's all about promoting cheap consumer goods that were made in a Chinese sweatshop and are half way to their final destination in an American landfill.

I'm not trying to sound elitist, but Old Navy? That stuff is garbage and will fall apart. And before somebody points out that not everybody is as fortunate as I must be: Clothes and other textiles once made up a much larger percentage of our incomes. Clothes are relatively cheap and if there's any issues it's because of a choice to emphasize quantity over quality.

Our consumer more-is-better culture is certainly not your fault. I just lament doing anything to fuel it.

Edit: if I had to suggest a place to buy affordable clothing, I'd say [http://everlane.com](http://everlane.com)

<comment><USER85> Or maybe people don't want to wear the same thing for more than five years and like to change their style up from time to time without giving an arm and a leg. You're lamenting the wonders of economic efficiency and industrialization, not a "more-is-better" culture. And you may not be trying to sound elitist, you _are_ elitist. Please go to your local old navy give the same speech you wrote here to the single mother trying her best to buy her kids some decent looking, fashionable clothes while also putting food on the table and try to tell them you're not trying to be elitist.

<comment><USER84> If you think you can get 5 years out of Old Navy clothes, good luck to you in that. This is not about being inexpensive, which is why I shared the link to everlane. It's about being CHEAP. The clothes are cheap and fall apart. There is no wonder of modern supply chain there.

And save your "single mother" speech. Really. This site has nothing to do with buying for your children. This is aimed at adults. That's obvious. Besides, why exactly is it virtuous that the single mother is emphasizing style over economy here?

<comment><USER85> I regularly get cheap garments to last five years. The quality gap is no that broad and certainly not justified by the extra expense. Anyways, since when did fashion need to be durable? More often than not people change their style to fit the fashion trends long before they wear their clothes out. Plus, clothes can be easily repaired if you're that frugal.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Uber for bicycles? The grand ambitions of Danish startup AirDonkey - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2015/sep/11/uber-for-bicycles-grand-ambitions-of-danish-startup-airdonkey <comment><USER2> There is already one in the U.S thus Spinlister.com. I wonder how it works if you get a flat tire, get injured etc..?</comment>


Google I/O 2013 - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&ved=0CGwQiBUwBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fplus.google.com%2F111395306401981598462%2Fposts%2FbLnk6DmRzhT&ei=BW--UOSgKMiw2wXM-oHICw&usg=AFQjCNFjC94f2N--aOthUqh_YocPNVKAxQ&sig2=-bb1gRHfak00oxZCSYIQRw <comment><USER2> Wishlist:

\- No free stuff.

\- A registration site not subcontracted out to a third party who sets up a _Cold Fusion_ application to handle ticketing.

\- Dedicated press passes for the keynotes so that reporters/bloggers et al don't clog up the rest of the conference (this one may already be true, I'm unclear).

The state of the registration system last year was shameful for a company that makes the lion's share of its revenue from the web.

<comment><USER3> Didn't Google do the registration themselves last year?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's great that the dates are known.

Indie devs can book flights and hotels to visit San Francisco regardless of whether they have an I/O ticket or not. If they don't get a ticket they can organise their week around other events e.g. work at coworking spaces, attend tech events, meet friends, some sight-seeing etc.

Companies could arrange a similar schedule for their employees. Just being in San Francisco to network and meet potential partners and clients is as valuable as attending I/O sessions.

An added bonus of knowing the dates early is that you can now plan your family vacation or company off-site without worrying about potentially missing out on a tech conference.

<comment><USER5> Do not book your flights yet. Remember Google IO 2012... they announced some dates, then a few months later they changed the dates of the event (shifted it a few weeks later). Be careful when you book flights until they officially put tickets on sale.

EDIT: [http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/10/save-date-for- google-...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/10/save-date-for-google- io-2012.html)

initially announced on Oct 17, 2011. Changed on November 28, 2011. Dates of the event shifted from April 24-25 to June 27-29, 2012.

<comment><USER6> I'd bet this was to give them time to get the entire Project Glass demo ready. Sergey's baby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Huh. I'll be starting an internship at the Mountain View office a few days after I/O. Will be interesting to see what the dynamic is coming down from the I/O high.

<comment><USER8> I was an intern this past summer and it was pretty unique to see the event unfold from the inside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope they stop giving away free stuff.

<comment><USER10> I agree. Maybe they should limit it to a single item, e.g., "the latest nexus dev phone" or "$300 of AppEngine credits."

Maybe then, the tickets wouldn't sell out within the first 45 mins (a good thing for developers who really want to go learn and network).

<comment><USER3> The 45 minute sell out implies that people had 45 minutes to book. However, as we know, the site was slammed immediately and it took 45 minutes for Google to fall over itself trying to process. It was effectively sold out immediately.

<comment><USER6> Given the number of tickets available (~4K I think) and the something like 1k+ hits/sec they had, the tickets would have been gone in a few seconds if the site had held up, not in minutes or hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What are the odds that Google can pull off an orderly registration this time? Considering prior years IO registration, and the recent Nexus 4 fun, I would say about nil.

</comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone attended an I/O satellite event at a non-Cali Google office? I'm thinking about signing up to visit Google in DC for I/O.

I'd like to know your impressions.

<comment><USER12> I went to one in NYC. It was neat to see talks by a couple people from Google NY before the conference began, but I am not sure that I got much from watching the conference itself there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The question is how long we have to wait until Google introduces a 'desktop' view of Android with multiple windows.

I'm saying later next year, but it could easily be at IO.

All the groundwork is there and there's little stopping Android being adopted as a 'real' OS.

<comment><USER14> I would say that the biggest barrier to that is Chrome OS. Or, rather, where in the market Android stops and Chrome OS starts.

<comment><USER13> My opinion regarding this is that Chrome OS is now ready to be ported to Android. All of Google's flagship devices now ship Chrome instead of 'Browser' and afaik Chromebooks are all ARM now (although Android is cross architecture)

<comment><USER15> "afaik Chromebooks are all ARM now"

This isn't correct. Chromebooks/ChromeOS are meant to be processor neutral just like Android.

The Samsung XE303C12 device released a few months ago is the only current official Chromebook device that is ARM based among half a dozen devices, most of which are x86, and Google hasn't said anything to suggest that they are shifting Chromebooks to the ARM exclusively.

In fact, the latest Chromebook release (Acer's C7, which was released _after_ the Samsung ARM one) is an x86 device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't see a point in releasing the dates 6 months before the event. I think we all know the approximate dates. It's not like you can block those dates and go out purchasing flights and hotel. Nothing is for sure until a pass is bought. And something tells me they are already sold out. One thing I noticed is they released a hash #io13 to follow on Google+, may be they are just pushing us to use Google+.

<comment><USER6> I wrote some scripts to stalk all the official Google blogs, Twitter hashes, and G+ tags and call me instantly so I could leap into action. I thought they were going to make it a surprise you know, reward the most crazed followers by just declaring it registration time so the camper hitting F5 don't win. No such thing. It was that way the year before too.

There is really no reason for them to change it. There are hundreds of thousands of people interested and a few seats. They'll sell out and be the dominant search engine regardless. Sadly that leaves it more luck of the draw than anything else.</comment></comment>


Desktop vs Web for email - <AUTHOR>

After reading the latest xobni thread, I am curious how people choose to read their email.  I use gmail because I can access it anywhere, and that feature pretty much trumps all others, privacy concerns included. <comment><USER2> Whenever possible I use gnus, primarily for the newsgroup-thread-style UI and editing power of emacs. I also take advantage of its inherent customizability with elisp to handle my different From addresses, conditional BCC, filtering, etc.

I use gmail for low priority traffic like mailing lists, and everything else goes through FastMail (<http://fastmail.fm/>) which is quite simply the best email host I've ever found. For $40/y you get hosting for 50 domains (and 30 aliases on FM's many domains); SpamAssassin; Sieve filtering; secure IMAP, POP and SMTP; 2GB storage; and a nice web UI which suffices when I'm away from gnus.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, I use the same setup: gnus + fastmail.fm IMAP. IMAP of course lets me use a number of MUAs (such as Mail.app or fastmail's web access) but I primarily use gnus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gmail is the best interface for email, on or off the web.

<comment><USER5> It really pains me to here so many give a knee-jerk "Gmail is the best answer," as I quite strongly feel that that is no longer the case.

When Gmail first came out, I certainly would have agreed with that statement. When I first received a Gmail invite, I placed "make Gmail address main one" somewhere on my to-do list.

Since then, however, Yahoo has mostly-replaced Yahoo! Mail with Yahoo! Mail Beta, which I strongly feel is far superior to Gmail (and far, far, far superior to the Yahoo! Mail Classic). Its main advantage (but definitely not its only) is its GUI, which contains its own tabbing system, the ability to read an e-mail in an iframe merely by selecting it in the inbox, the ability to move between folders via drag-and-drop, and much more.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo%21_Mail#Yahoo.21_Mail_AJA...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo%21_Mail#Yahoo.21_Mail_AJAX)

<comment><USER6> Last time I tried the Yahoo! Mail Beta, there was no fallback to basic HTML; since I tend to find myself in links quite frequently, that matters. In contrast, Gmail's Basic HTML mode seems to be better every time I try it... that's decisive for me.

Relatedly, but off topic: It _still_ appals me how many sites don't gracefully degrade back to vanilla HTML. Or even check, for heaven's sake, merrily making all of their links Javascript-only. Not nearly as many as assume that you can't possibly be using your own fonts or setting minimum point sizes, admittedly (my eyesight isn't what it used to be, and it never used to be up to much) but even so... I keep hoping that someday a revision of HTML will come out that banishes the javascript: protocol from links altogether.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use Mail.app for mac. I have an IMAP account that has squirrel mail access and essentially infinite storage. The squirrel mail was a pain and I went to gmail while I was in the corporate world. Now that I have a startup I am mostly on my machine and the webmail is just a backup that I seldom use if I'm on another machine.

-I like drag and drop attachments. -I like the OS integration. Click on an email link from the browser, send something from iPhoto etc... -I hate that when I hit tab on gmail it focuses on the send button. -I like having email offline. -I like to be able to fast-seach AND THEN sort. -I like realtime spellcheck.

Gmail is the best web interface by far but in my opinion it is inferior to mail.app. I think the tipping point comes when you're spending more time on a machine w/o your client, gmail is the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER8> I completely agree -- I use the web for ease on the go. I have way too many computers that I regularly use to bother setting up a desktop client.

Lots of companies don't like email on other servers, calling it a security risk.

That's probably true, but given the lacking security in other areas in almost every company I've heard with this policy, the security excuse is useless.

</comment><comment><USER9> I really don't care for Gmail. I run my own IMAP server and use Mail.app on my Mac, and RoundCube webmail when I'm on another computer.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use mutt, over ssh if I'm working remotely.

</comment><comment><USER11> I use both. You don't have to choose just one. Having your own email server gives you lots of options.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but it means you're on the hook if things break. I switched to Gmail a few years ago, and I love that any Gmail breakage is Google's problem, not mine.

<comment><USER11> Gmail is great, but why would you ever rely on a 3rd party for a main form of business communication? I like having my own servers, but I build in lots of redundancy, so that I'm covered. No matter what happens.

<comment><USER13> Meh, I'd guess that Google has better backups and better availability than your servers. Maybe I underestimate your skills. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At home I used Pegasus Mail until a year or two ago, when I switched to Thunderbird. At work I use Outlook. I don't have a strong preference for either.

I check email on the web only when I absolutely have to. I like the gmail interface, but still vastly prefer to download my email.

If I can get emacs configured, I'll start using that. I get hundreds of emails a day and at any given time I only care about maybe 5% of them. But it's a different 5% every day and sometimes I want to be interrupted. I need to be able to change my filters on the fly. With Outlook, you have to pull up application-halting dialog boxes and click through several different UIs to change them.

</comment><comment><USER3> What if you ssh to a server and use a text-based MUA? That does not exactly qualify as desktop, does it. It's a third category, which I personally prefer most of the time.

For the record, I'm using gnus with IMAP and emacs within screen on linux.

</comment><comment><USER15> I slipped pretty rapidly from gnus, in emacs, to thunderbird, to gmail - it's just too convenient to have it on the server with a good interface. Sometimes, I do miss the fact that the others are open source, and hackable, though.

<comment><USER10> The only mail clients that I can make do everything I want them to do are gnus, mutt, and sylpheed. I like having my mail client inside emacs, but I switched back from gnus to mutt. Gnus takes too long to start up and is too brittle if your IMAP connection is unreliable. Mutt does occasionally hang for the same reasons, but then it's just a matter of C-\ and rerun it, rather than taking my whole emacs session with it.

Thunderbird is missing the ability to pipe messages through an external process.

<comment><USER3> gnus has been ok for me for two reasons:

1) fastmail.fm (the IMAP service I use has been very reliable for years now)

2) I don't actually start gnus, or emacs, or a linux terminal session on a daily basis; I just keep them running and use ssh and screen to get to them. It's only text mode of course, but for the last 5 years or so I rarely had a real need for anything more than text (and if such need arises, I just use the web access to the IMAP server or another MUA).

<comment><USER15> I abandoned gnus when I decided I needed a spam filter, and just didn't want to spend a whole day fiddling with Emacs Lisp, and worrying about silently trashing my mail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does no one else miss the ability to easily send attachments with web-based clients?

</comment><comment><USER17> I can't stand desktop mail. It's not portable (sure, lugging a notebook is or having a space limited IMAP helps) and there's always the backup problem. I hate worrying about losing messages so I tend to offload that risk to competent folks over at Google.

As for security, email is not secure. It never was and probably never will be. PGP etc. is too hard for most of the people so even if you use it, majority of your corresponders won't.

Desktop email is an anachronism. With the proliferation of rich mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) it will become obsolete.

<comment><USER18> You may be confusing email with instant messaging. As a channel for exchanging _documents_ (as opposed to messages) email (and desktop email especially) is still indispensable.

You are 100% right about lack of security though.

<comment><USER17> Don't think so. Desktop mail is not much different from web mail when it comes to exchanging documents. Heck, these days with all these web apps around, you don't even need to use a desktop app.

<comment><USER18> I disagree. Browsers still do not let you embed your data (files) into submitted pages conveniently. We are still unable to _easily_ grab a file and email it to 5 people using webmail. Moreover, even slightly complex documents (i.e. with MORE than just text with basic formatting) are pain to email/consume with webmail.

Or try emailing me a snipped of source code preserving syntax highlighting, formatting and fonts&colors.

Webmail is in stone age when it comes to feature set and usability. It has one HUGE advantage (mobility) but that's about it.

Most people are fine using it because most people, understandably, are not sending each other "documents", but I would describe a typical personal email rather as "short message".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The choice of desktop vs web for email boils down to whether you are an individual user or an Enterprise. I suspect that Xobni is targeting the enterprise. Otherwise, I dont see the point of an outlook plugin. Software as a service has been and will continue to be a hardsell for enterprises due to the security considerations of having a third party handle your proprietary information. Its not just about paranoid IT admins. Companies will probably need dedicated mail servers to be in line with Sarbanes Oxley and other regulatory laws.

<comment><USER4> So it is always a violation of Sarbanes Oxley for a public corporation to use Google Apps/Gmail?

<comment><USER19> I did not say that. But they will need a 3rd party auditor to certify that Gmail is "secure" -- whatever that means. SOX has caused more pain than transparency..

<comment><USER20> They will need to prove more than that. The people sending the mail have certain fiduciary duties to the shareholders of the corporation. It will take some doing to convince an arbiter or, God forbid, a federal judge, that giving clear text copies of internal corporate communications to a third party is consistent with those obligations. Especially since the EULAs of these services typically oblige an enterprise to use the "...It's OK...they promise not to read it" defense.

Even better, an employee of one of these services, quite innocently, sells some of a client corporation's stock. That corporation better hope to whatever they consider Holy that the stock refrains from dropping for a while. SOX makes it a good deal easier to prosecute lots of different parties to the appearance of impropriety. Guilt and innocence goes out the window. What matters is what is LEGAL, and a little something called "burden of proof". In my own opinion, it is so low now that a sick kindergarten age child could hurdle it.

Unless you are a VERY good lawyer, or you can afford one, or preferably 10, I would advise you to stay away from any SOX entanglements. Sell the enterprise some software to run on their own servers, DO NOT offer to manage it if you are a startup.

That said, if you can afford the battalion of attorneys, move forward with your plans. Keep in mind however, indemnity clauses in the new SOX era means you go to prison WITH them should anything go horribly awry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've used gmail for the last couple of years, but only because email hasn't been very important to me and I've had always-on web access. Now that both of those circumstances seem about to change, I think it's time I learned my way around mutt... or some other offline client.

The one thing I dislike about gmail is that I find myself reluctant to use it to write long emails. Especially in Basic HTML view.

</comment><comment><USER21> I use desktop mail (Evolution) unless I'm on somebody else's computer. The biggest reason is that it lets me keep all my mail in one place. I don't want to have to log in to several different web mail accounts, use different UIs and have to remember which account different messages are in.

My primary address is on Gmail, and I do use the web interface when I can't got to my laptop, but I prefer not to.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use both. I have 3 email accounts, two of which have a webmail interface and one that does not. I primarily use Thunderbird but don't delete messages for n days (well never for gmail) so I can also check with various webmail accounts. Among other nice things the ability to filter out HTML is a "killer feature" I simply can not live without and have yet to see duplicated in any webmail interface.

</comment><comment><USER23> I like the GMAIL interface, I run it all day long(literally).

I've used other webmail like the new and improved AOL and Yahoo, but it's too feature rich for me,it takes up too much processing power of my 1.4ghz aand 512mb ram puter and I am already used to using GMAIL.

At work I am forced to use outlook, but would much rather use thunderbird.

</comment><comment><USER24> Apple Mail, when I'm away, either my isp webmail or Gmail. I don't like web mail - the user experience is poor and inconsistent.

</comment><comment><USER25> I used to use desktop email. Pain in the neck - what about when you're using a different PC, what about when you're upgrading to a new O/S, what if you're at an internet cafe and just need to find that email...

GMail is excellent. Well thought out interface, and it just works.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love the labels and filters and I use Google Calendar religiously and gmail integrates with that pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER27> I prefer my email on Evolution/Outlook, much better than gmail.</comment>


Board Members - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/board-members <comment><USER2> _> It's a good idea to keep enough control so that investors can't fire you (there are a lot of different ways to do this)_

Can anyone elaborate?

Sam articulates several advantages to having a board (focus on execution, thinking big, hiring executives) but none of them really require the board to have voting control, i.e. the ability to override the founder.

More generally, I think most founders would be fine with and welcome an outside board as long as there was a Zuckerberg-like voting agreement where the founders retained control. But then again I don't really understand the difference between that and a board of advisors.

Bottom line, why do investors care about control at the early stages? Do they really expect that they'll need to override the founder in the nascent stages? Is it just a security blanket? I would be wary of investors who really insist on the ability to vote against the founders at the seed to series A stage.

<comment><USER3> I think you are misunderstanding the way corporations are organized. All corporations must have a board of directors, and the board of directors is the ultimate top level decision making entity within the corporation. The board is always in control. Shareholders have the ability to periodically vote on directors, but that is basically the extent of their power. Shareholders have no right to influence day to day operations of the corporation. So, if you are a founder and want to assure control of the board, you must maintain a majority of voting class shares, otherwise large investors could vote in their own directors who can do whatever they want (like replacing the founder as the CEO).

<comment><USER4> > All corporations must have a board of directors

It this a legal requirement, or is it just by convention? Has anyone ever experimented with alternate company structures?

<comment><USER3> I'm not a lawyer, but I did just read a book† written by a lawyer†† about this topic. I think it's possible that it can vary state to state, but in Delaware (a very popular place to form corporations) the law††† says:

 _The business and affairs of every corporation organized under this chapter shall be managed by or under the direction of a board of directors, except as may be otherwise provided in this chapter or in its certificate of incorporation._

† [http://www.amazon.com/The-Shareholder-Value-Myth- Shareholder...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Shareholder-Value-Myth- Shareholders/dp/1605098132)

†† [http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/faculty/bio_lynn_stout.cfm](http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/faculty/bio_lynn_stout.cfm)

††† [http://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc04/index.shtml](http://delcode.delaware.gov/title8/c001/sc04/index.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is slightly off-topic, but I've always wondered: How do startups with a small number of founders set up their boards? I heard talk of boards with 2 founders, 2 VCs, and 1 outside board member; but with a single founder, there's no way to avoid being outvoted. Would there be a "friend of the founder who is trusted to always vote with her" seat to keep the board balance?

<comment><USER6> While we're offtopic, may I ask why "board control" has been conflated with "we need someone who will help the company"?

It seems like the value of a board member is their role with the company, not their control over the company. Those seem like two distinct concepts, and you only want to deal with the former.

Why can't founders give people equity stakes on par with what a "board member" would receive, while giving them no voting power within the company? Is this a case of "In theory that would work, but in practice you wouldn't get the benefits an actual board member would bring"? If so, why is that?

Maybe there are few people who would actually bring enough value to your company where it makes sense to offer them a board seat. If there are few, then they can demand a board seat. And maybe that's why voting power goes along with their positive effect: It's part of the deal. But I'm just wildly guessing, and it'd be great to hear from someone with insights about the actual reasons one can't simply give up an equity stake and expect to receive help on par with an actual board member.

<comment><USER7> Board members typically don't get paid especially well, nor receive meaningful equity positions in exchange for being on the board. If you're a sizable investor in the company, obviously that's a different context.

In the Fortune 500, it's a prestige gig as much as anything. For many smaller companies, agreeing to be on the board while not being a large investor, is almost akin to being involved in a local govt board of economic development for a town or county - it's sometimes done as a favor, out of quasi-charity to help out, and or you know some of the people involved and want to see the company succeed.

It can also be a great way to make more connections in business; one board membership refers to the next - you can kind of move up an economic chain that way if you go on a successful ride-along. People like to be associated with / involved with successful enterprises.

The historical reason for connected board control, is at least two fold: enabling trusted parties to oust the CEO without needing to hold a large vote by shareholders (not an easy thing to do now, and more difficult a century ago); and enabling direct major shareholder control without requiring a wider shareholder vote (if you own 10,000 shares of Walmart along with a million other investors, while technically those total shares have the same voting value net as the hedge fund that owns 5% of the company - the 5% entity wants a lot of influence due to the concentrated stake). Board control also enables rapid action in cases of fraud or abuse by the top executive/s, in which case time may be critical - that is, you don't want to wait months for a full shareholder vote.

Also, who do you leave legal authority to, when it comes to deciding the replacement for a CEO that has decided to retire or quit (or dies, or whatever)? Certainly shareholders as a whole have legal control, but it's not very practical to have thousands of shareholders trying to figure out who gets to be the next CEO (most of those shareholders will have absolutely no idea who would make a good candidate, or where to start, having typically zero direct involvement in understand the business top to bottom, and most shareholders will have no experience running a serious business). The only entity that makes sense in that regard is a board of some sort.

<comment><USER8> > Board members typically don't get paid especially well... In the Fortune > 500, it's a prestige gig as much as anything."

They get paid $100-250k for maybe 1 day a month of work and very little responsibility most of the time. That's a lot of money in absolute terms but maybe not relative to the total income of typical board members.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article articulates well that it's important to have good board members and it's disasterous to have bad ones, but then doesn't really explain what to look for in a board member besides experience.

I'd love to see some input here about what makes a good vs bad board member and how to identify one when making a board.

<comment><USER8> Because it wasn't the topic of the essay.

<comment><USER10> it should have been. that's much more important than just saying "having a good board is good".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To clarify the corporate structure generally:

Shareholders: They are owners and elect the Board of Directors. There could be different classes of shareholders, some with/without voting rights.

Board of Directors: They generally vote on the corporate officers and authorize corporate action outside the day to day control/operation of the business. Voting rights, powers, terms of directorships and the like are typically defined in corporate documents, and if none exist, then generally this is all defined by a given State statute/code.

Officers: Titles include President, CEO, COO, CFO, Treasurer, Secretary, ect... These people are in control of the day to day operations of the company. Again powers, terms and the like are typically defined in corporate documents, and if none exist, generally are established by default by a given State statute/code.

This is generally the default structure throughout all the states. All these things can be modified/defined in greater detail through shareholder agreements, by-laws, restrictive agreements, ect...

</comment><comment><USER12> >> As a side note, bad board members are disastrous.

This is too important a point to be left as a side note; I'm sure this is the primary reason founders prefer not to have external board members.

"How to choose an external board member" would be a great follow-up essay.

</comment><comment><USER13> Where do people find "outside" board members? I assume the term "outside" here implies someone who isn't longtime friends with either founders or investors, but someone who does have the respect of both. If I was a founder who wanted to build a board, how would I go about finding the right person?

<comment><USER14> You would look for someone with experience in the area you want to operate in, or maybe someone from a complementary sector. The role of the board is to look at the company in the larger context, i.e. within its market at large, and within its general industrial sector. You also want someone who has a good track record hiring executives, so that they can broaden the circle of people the CEO might hire from.

Your investors, by their virtue of having money, don't necessarily have experience in your specific market, so it's good to bring outsiders that are more interested in seeing the company succeed period, rather than maximizing their own investment, as investors are.

<comment><USER15> This sounds right in term of what to look for. But what are the mechanics of the search?

It seems like something really personal for the company--and yet founders are often not likely to have great independent board candidates that they have long histories with.

Investors are much more likely to know great independent board candidates--so how do you structure a search so it yields the independents are 1) as good as you need them to be and 2) not actually just more investor seats on the board?

<comment><USER14> Unless you're already accomplished with a previous track record, you're probably going to be looking for advisers before investors, so usually as a founder you've already asked tons of people for advice. Or you should have, anyway. :) When talking to such people, you have to keep in mind that you'll want to recruit people for a board one day. It's really a socializing and networking thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I no nothing about this sort of thing but.. what about employees on the board of directors, advisory board or creating an employee board to fill this role?

I now that european labour socialism, unionism and some asian management paradigms have included things like this in the past. Are there any useful takeaways from those experiments?

I realize that the purpose of a board is to bring in a perspective less tainted by the day-to-day, but there can often be a disconnect between day to day and "horizon." Connecting the two is important. Assuming smart people, who's to say that employees would not be as capable of bridging that gap then some independent advisor with useful experience elsewhere, but not much understanding of the company itself.

The few times that I have been privy to that kind of discussion boards and advisors are supposed to be involved with (with real stakes involved), I always thought they had a poor grasp on some important aspects. Big ideas need to play to the strength of the company. Insiders have a distinct advantage here. Ideas that employees really like, have a extra advantage.

</comment><comment><USER17> Especially for first time founders, not inviting an investor to sit on your board when you raise is a mistake. I can speak from personal experience here. The many upsides of an outside board member (mentorship, a cadence to the business, outside perspective, pattern recognition, real investor buy-in) outweigh the few downsides (loss of control, investment of time in board management).

It's an especially insidious mistake for founders, because not giving up control (i.e. not giving up any board seats) seems like a victory during fundraising, and you only see the downsides when things start to turn sour.

Here's another great post about the value of outside board members: [http://allthingsd.com/20130927/the-value-of-a-board-at- the-s...](http://allthingsd.com/20130927/the-value-of-a-board-at-the-seed- stage/)

<comment><USER18> Loss of control _can_ be a huge downside though.

What's missing from this article is a way to distinguish bad board members from good ones. The same goes for shareholders (founders, angel investors and VCs). One bad one can cause you a ton of trouble and take attention away from the day-to-day running of the business when it matters most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Having just finished the book Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton, it seems that the board is the crucial thing for founder control. This really surprised me because I had assumed that the board worked for the shareholders and that if you had the majority of the shares, technically you controlled the board via proxy. But there must be some sort of legal maneuver that prevents this (otherwise, a majority shareholder could call a special board meeting and replace the board or expand it in their favor).

It was puzzling to me how Ev Williams basically got kicked out of Twitter by the board (of which he was a member) when he was the largest shareholder. Perhaps his percentage was diluted down during the previous rounds? The book implied the board kicked Williams out against his own volition even though he seemed to hand pick all the board members.

If a case like Twitter (and now Tinder) where the board sets the ultimate agenda is the norm, choosing board members is something that should be given more emphasis and the info in the post seems to be exceedingly helpful.

<comment><USER20> I believe that Tinder was a fully, or majority, owned subsidiary. It's a different case.

As for Twitter - by the time a company gets that big, it's rare for a founder to have such a large stake. Google and Facebook are the exceptions, though Twitter does deserve to be mentioned with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If the problem is really only guidance and outside input, wouldn't having advisors (no voting rights) solve the problem described in the essay without giving up any kind of control?

<comment><USER21> In theory, sure. The practical issue is that advisors often don't have as great an incentive to be highly engaged.

<comment><USER8> What is the incentive of a formal board member and why can't it be replicated with an advisor?

<comment><USER21> In the context of sama's post, the formal board member will have made a financial investment. That means that s/he has committed either his/her own money, or that of an LP; in a good board member, this creates alignment and engagement--since the board member wants the company to succeed for financial and reputational reasons.

<comment><USER8> Presumably the outside board members described by Sam Altman do not make a financial investment but, regardless, someone who has made an investment already has an incentive; they would be just an incentived with or without a board seat.

<comment><USER21> I'd encourage you to reread Sam's post. The whole premise is that the typical terms of a _Series A investment_ no longer include a board seat by default for said investor. He does say that board members don't have to be investors, but that " it's very important to get an advisor with a significant equity position that will play the role of a board member."

<comment><USER2> But advisors typically get equity. How much equity does a non-investor outside/independent board member typically get?

If it's similar then I think the question still stands: how do outside board members materially differ from advisors apart from voting power?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > But great board members, with a lot of experience _seeing companies get > built_ , are the sort of people founders should want thinking about their > companies every day.

That IMHO sets the right tone. You want board members that understand they're on the sidelines, watching and evaluating. You don't want people who think they're the captain(s) of the team, "experienced in building companies".

</comment><comment><USER23> One small thought on the penultimate para:

> _The companies that have had the biggest impact and created the most value > have had excellent board members (and executives). I don't believe this is a > coincidence._

It can of course go both ways. I'm not saying good boards don't improve their companies, but good founders (likely to make good companies) probably also pick better board members.

</comment><comment><USER20> _But great board members, with a lot of experience seeing companies get built, are the sort of people founders should want thinking about their companies every day._

This...

I believe that venture money on it's own is not worth the price. (VC's expected rate of return is higher than most credit cards) Getting the right golden advisor - all of a sudden the credit card looks cheap.</comment>


Do Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol? - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/human/do-intelligent-people-drink-more-alcohol.html

<comment><USER2> _Psychology Today takes an evolutionary approach. They argue that drinkable alcohol is a relatively novel invention of 10,000 years ago. Our ancestors had previously gotten their alcohol kick through eating rotten fruits, so more intelligent humans may be more likely to choose modern alcoholic beverages._

Is it my imagination, or does that leap of logic make no sense whatsoever?

Perhaps I'd need to be drunk to understand it.

<comment><USER3> I think they are saying that until relatively recently only people lots of openness-with-experience and intellectual curiosity would spend the time learning about and tracking down random fruits in order to get fucked up. And so between roughly a million years ago and ten thousand years ago, it was mostly intelligent people who were co-evolving with alcohol. So that's why intelligent people today get more pleasure from drinking.

I personally would propose that intelligent people are more likely to have less empathy and social intelligence as the evolutionary tradeoff for being smart, so they benefit more from using alcohol socially.

<comment><USER4> So the smelly bum on the street corner who mutters to himself is at the peak of the evolutionary hierarchy? The assertions made seem too simplistic. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would think more intelligent people would tend to be wealthier, and wealthier people can consume more alcohol. I realize there are plenty of broke alcoholics - but leaving out chronic alcoholics, I think you're more likely to have a bottle of wine with dinner if you're rich than poor.

A more tongue in cheek and/or political answer is to suggest that smart people realize how ruined the world is and drink to assuage their pain.

The article gives so little info, you could easily suggest other explanations by making other assumptions about the data; all they give is very dull vs. very intelligent.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Fresh out of college and broke, having a beer with dinner, or having that second or third drink at a bar was just not in the budget.

<comment><USER7> Tell that to anyone in Czech Republic, where beer is in most restaurants cheaper than softdrinks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Increased alcohol consumption is also linked to child abuse, divorce, DUI arrests, alcohol poisoning, people losing their jobs, fights, and brain damage.

<comment><USER9> And depression and its associated pathologies. But as with everything, YMMV. Some people can drink a lot and have it not affect anything at all. Only some people, though.

<comment><USER3> Smoking weed when drinking reduces the associated brain damage, and most likely it would reduce the depression as well. (I'm guessing that most of the depression is from alcohol being a pro-inflammatory, whereas the CBD in weed is a powerful anti-inflammatory.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to live in Cambridge, MA. The bars were filled with graduate students, post docs, and PhD burnouts. I'm not sure how much dumb people drink, but the smart ones could drink me under the table.

<comment><USER11> 1\. There are simply more of these people that make their way to Cambridge for obvious reasons. Naturally you'll find a larger proportion in most environments there.

2\. These people probably don't have much in the way of manual labor in their day-to-day work but do have a higher level of stress (manual labor and exercise reducing stress) and mental exhaustion. The guy that spends his day working with his hands might like a drink after work but it's more likely at home and not as much because he doesn't have the physical energy to stay up and drink.

Someone that has mental exhaustion wants to unwind and has the physical energy to take themselves to a bar and socialize.

I know I've worked a full day in one part of the country, got on a plane to another part and spent the night out drinking. I don't think this is because I'm more intelligent than a guy swinging a hammer all day but I simply had the physical energy to do it; the work wasn't physically exhausting.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think there is a correlation between intelligence, existential angst, and a need to 'get fucked up' to let it all go for the night. It's not EVERY intelligent person, just a subset that doesn't feel any stigma about drugs/alcohol. The big problem is when people start to believe alcohol/drugs are an escape from reality, they really just alter consciousness up or down a few levels. Over the years, alcohol will also make you dumber and more likely to do something you'll regret for many years.

I prefer cannabis and acid instead of alcohol. They seem to elevate consciousness instead of depress it. But who could say no to a beer with your friends after a hard day's work?

<comment><USER12> My experience from observing people over the years is that prolonged or heavy cannabis use is as damaging as prolonged or heavy alcohol use, if not more so. Lightly used each is relatively harmless.

The 'elevated consciousness' is just your drug addled mind flattering itself, to an outsider you will seem imbecilic. Your slightly self-satisfied tone is really, really unwarranted.

<comment><USER13> The high you get from cannabis, to my mind, restores a playfulness and creativity to your thinking that most people have as children but lose as adults. It can sometimes make linear, technical thinking harder, but it tends to make it easier to see the big picture and brainstorm new ideas. It certainly can benefit artistic work, too.

Acid is even better; it maintains the creativity advantages of cannabis while adding a clarity of thinking that can often be superior to sobriety.

I'm not saying everyone will benefit from these drugs, or that they will improve your performance on every task, but you seem to suggest that they don't offer any benefit at all and simply reduce the user to an imbecile. That does not remotely resemble my experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree fully. It just amplifies who you are deep down. It can be creative under the right conditions or destructive under the wrong conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Funnily enough, I was talking about this exact topic with a clinical psychologist recently. In a nutshell, intelligent people think more. They don't just think better, or more efficiently, they think _more_.

The side-effect is that certain illnesses like depression affect intelligent people quite hard. They self-medicate, often with alcohol.

As well, otherwise healthy intelligent people might self-medicate to calm down their perceived over-active thoughts.

Combined, the result is that intelligent people are over-represented in alcoholism, albeit perhaps as high-functioning alcoholics.

</comment><comment><USER15> There was a paper from an ornithologist in the Czech Republic a few years back that found that the more a scientist drinks, the fewer and lower quality the scientist's papers.

The interesting part isn't the conclusion, which seems suspect, but the scientists' reactions.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18beer.html>

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/03/19/a-sci...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/03/19/a-scientific- defense-of-beer/)

</comment><comment><USER16> All I know is that it is certainly comforting to think so ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> Not to sound overtly obnoxious, but I drink so that I can tolerate things other people say when I spend time in a mixed social group.

An fictitious example would be an episode of House where a genius would robotrip because it was the only way he could tolerate his wife because of an intellectual barrier.

</comment><comment><USER18> My expectation would be that more intelligent children have more demanded of them, and go on to choose or take more stressful careers. Are there any studies correlating stress levels and drinking? Personal experience would suggest a relationship.

</comment><comment><USER19> Having seen nothing about the guts of how the study was done, I will suggest the following possible explanation for the difference in how much each group supposedly drank:

More intelligent, educated people are less likely to view alcohol as "sinful" and may have therefore been more honest and accurate when reporting how much they drank. Less intelligent or less educated individuals may have underreported alcohol consumed due to denial (since it is impossible to tell the truth to someone else and keep lying to yourself about something) or even simply not remembering it as accurately.

I'm not a big believer in the accuracy of studies of this sort.

</comment><comment><USER20> I highly doubt intelligent people drink more alcohol. Anyone have additional information about this?

<comment><USER21> As alcohol is moderately expensive, I assume it would correlate with income, which does moderately correlate with intelligence.

<comment><USER22> Low-riding your car also costs money, but I don't think it correlates with income. At least not in the direction you'd expect.

<comment><USER21> While you are pointing out something that does cost money, it is a niche product only used by a certain social group.

I'd assume _within the social group_ (which I'm not even sure how to define), you actually would find it correlates with income.

<comment><USER22> While this is certainly true (you have to a car to low-ride it), shouldn't be expect social groups to be at play with alcohol as well?

For example, lawyers tend be to more intelligent (and have higher incomes) than the general population, and perhaps lawyers tend to drink more. Is this suggestive of a correlation with income, or profession? Do the smarter and presumably better paid lawyers drink more than others?

<comment><USER21> It actually looks like they controlled for income, see the link above.

It looks like its actual IQ that has the highest correlation.

<comment><USER22> Ya, it appears so. I wonder what their methodology was.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Collaborative filtering resources - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulperry.net/notes/cf.asp <comment><USER2> Great link! Google has some great research publications as well that I recommened everyone checkout: http://labs.google.com/papers.html

They have an amazing collection of research papers based on their products. Personally, I recommend "Evaluating similarity measures: a large-scale study in the Orkut social network" as a preliminary mathematical introduction to user interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem with collaborative filtering is that there's a lot of magic going on that the user does not understand. Some users like to have more control over personalized recommendations and social networks can give them that control.

<comment><USER2> That website has some great case studies available on recommender systems available for finding "music", "content", etc. I would much rather prefer that a computer do my work than myself. Web users have a terrible attention span so such a system would work to their benefit by eliminating the need to click- and-find content. For anyone interested, I expressed my ideas on collaborative filtering here: http://www.socialdegree.com/2007/01/15/interview-w-shuzakcom- founder-jawad-shuaib/

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From what I can tell a lot of this CF stuff starts with a machine learning algorithm and data about likes/dislikes, making filtering a classification or search task. Is there something that differentiates it from the usual machine learning challenges? Like dealing with users interactively, perhaps?</comment>


Ask HN: What should I watch out for in starting a business - <AUTHOR>

So I have an idea that I'm fleshing out right now into a business model, and starting to test it out with users in the hopes of opening to the public soon. I live in Southern California, with a baby on the way, so applying for YCombinator is out. There aren't any real needs for employees/resources right now, so funding probably isn't necessary.
I'm just wondering what some common things I should be watching out for might be.
Should I get incorporated as soon as possible, should I wait. Do I need to copyright/trademark stuff soon, does it not really matter. The articles I've been reading are very helpful, but it would be cool to get some perspective from people who have done it. <comment><USER2> I think it depends on the nature of your business. If you're licensing something, or another type of venture that requires contracts, you'll need to be incorporated and have a lawyer look over your contracts early on. If you're just providing a consulting service, it probably isn't as necessary.

A generic business tip that I think is worth knowing and very tough for newbies to accept: be wary of any deal that isn't cash based. If someone wants you to do them a favor and they do one in return, watch your back. If it's truly a valuable arrangement, cash should underlay the terms.

</comment><comment><USER3> I live in Los Angeles and when I started my business I formed a CA LLC right away. I don't have any employees in the US, just remote workers in the Philippines. I don't plan on taking any investment, so an LLC is fine. In CA there is a minimum $800 annual tax, so take that into consideration. Forming an LLC made sense for me because it protects my personal assets in the case my company is sued.

I'd suggest talking to a lawyer to get some advice...</comment>